Direct 404 Errors to index.html — Good or Bad?

[Rugg]

Curious if anyone could suggest a legit reason as to why I shouldn’t direct 404 Errors to the directory index.html or site homepage… Instead of a designated error page. Thanks

[Paulie_D]

Because you need to let people know that something has gone wrong.

By all means re-direct after a delay but at least keep them informed.

[TheDoc]

Yea, as others have said, a little too confusing for the user. Imagine if you were positive that you were putting in the URL properly and it just kept on taking you to the home page. Super frustrating, right?

There’s no harm in beefing up your 404 page, though. If you have content on the home page that you’re really trying to promote, by all means put it on the 404 as well. Just make sure to let the user know that they have not found the page that they were looking for. You can always add some copy that goes like, “We’re sorry, but the page you’re looking for could not be found. Check out some of our favourite items below:” … or whatever the copy would need to be to work in your situation.

[croydon86]

Agree with above, 404 page is crucial.

Also you should register your site with Google webmaster tools or similar. They track all your 404’s, so you can have a look at some broken links (if any) and manually redirect them to the page they should go to, resulting in a better user experience.

[Author]

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